Monday, 4 January 2016

Dawkins criticism of winged horses makes sense

Richard
Dawkins is not far from being the cause of controversies labelling him an
‘Islamophobe.’ Recently he stormed out of an interview when a Muslim journalist
confirmed he personally believed that the Prophet flew to heaven on a winged
horse. In response Dawkins told the New Statesman journalist Emad Ahmad that
his ‘belief’ was pathetic before angrily storming off.

While Ahmad
went on to explain his shock at the reaction of the scientist to the media,
Dawkins took to Twitter to defend his actions. Though much of what happened
occurred due to PR mismanagement, Dawkins made it known that his comments about
the belief on Mohammad were meant to deflate the concept that there is any logic
into believing he travelled on a winged horse to heaven.

For the
critics of Dawkins, the whole incident is evidence of his condemnation for
everything that Islam stands for. The belief in the winged horse story is
central to the Islamic tenets upholding Mohammad’s legitimate status as a Prophet
of God. The widespread plausible argument can be gathered from the opinions of
Al-Jazeera’s journalist Mehdi Hasan who interviewed Dawkins at the Oxford Union
in 2012 and expressed his absolute belief in winged horses.

The
interview which can be watched on Youtube is good piece of evidence how
religion can down play logic. While Dawkins made an effort to be mild and
polite in reasoning against the fallacy of religious supremacy, his argument
was pitted against well-researched, data ridden, factually sound reasoning by
Mahdi Hasan who made a case to convince that religion is essentially good and
makes no appeal to people wanting to commit acts of extremism.

Who can
argue against the charitable Mother Teresa and believe that the Communist
regimes who did away with religion were trying to uplift humanity! It is easy
to defend religion and agree it does well for mankind in the face of the
obvious evidence that atheist scholars and scientists who never go along with
what the masses say are always outnumbered against God-fearing people. For that
matter Muslims know about Ibn Hanbal, Imam Shafi, Al-Ghazali and of their endeavours
to establish the primacy of orthodox belief that the revealed truth should be
accepted without questioning.

Against
such illustrious men the teachings of the 8th century Mutazilite
school of theology, established in Baghdad,
is almost certainly lost. The greatest contribution of the men who formed this
school of thought included their reasoning that revelations are limited by time
and Quranic injunctions can be modified according to the changing
circumstances. Their belief in rational freedom and Quran as created word
gained acknowledgement during the middle of the ninth century. But as the
authority of the Ulema became absolute in establishing that man cannot attain
knowledge of God through reason and so he must follow revelation
unquestionably, then reason became subordinate to revelation. Rationalism in
religion for which the Mutazillites stood culminated after conformism of the
orthodox theologians and the Sunni Ulemas triumphed. Persecution and rigid
conservatism of voices disliking reasoning and research silenced liberal
tolerance of the Mutazillites and to this day no fresh thought or movement have
managed to free the Muslims from intellectual decline.

The defence
for Islamic teachings is now an apologetic defence or justification with no
originality to appeal intellect and mind that can unhinge the Muslims from
rigid conservatism.

Hopefully in
this day and age, when man has superseded all barriers against logic and
reasoning, the blind belief in winged horses will not triumph.

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About Me

@mssolidarity is Salima Yakoob. She has written on extremism, war on terror and
international politics. Many times she stands corrected but refuses to bow down
to religious apologists and moderates with no agendas. Her degree in English
proved beneficial in understanding the several isms.

If @mssolidarity is not writing she is doing
school runs, reading books of all sorts and listening to London Grammar on her
ipod.

Her posts
can be sometimes off-track and overly imaginative, but you should forgive her. She
is only a writer.